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Halloween II (Television Cut)
Halloween II is a 1981 horror film and the second installment in the Halloween series. Directed by Rick Rosenthal and written by John Carpenter and Debra Hill, it is a direct sequel to the first film; set on the same night of October 31, 1978, in the fictional American Midwest town of Haddonfield, the seemingly indestructible Michael Myers follows his intended victim Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) to a nearby hospital while Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasence) is still in pursuit of his patient. An alternate version of Halloween II has been airing on the AMC network television beginning in the early 1980s, and was released on DVD packaged with the Scream Factory collector's edition in 2012 after fans of the franchise had long petitioned for an official release of this cut, with most of the graphic violence and gore edited out and several minor additional scenes added. Plot Laurie Strode instructs Tommy Doyle and Lindsey Wallace to seek shelter with Joe Mackenzie. After they leave, Michael Myers rises and moves towards Laurie. Doctor Sam Loomis, as he watches Tommy and Lindsay screaming and running out of the house, bursts into the house and shoots Michael in the chest six times. Myers falls back towards the outside and balcony and tumbles to the ground. Loomis goes to inspect the body, but Michael has disappeared. A neighbor comes out to see what all the noise is about. Loomis tells him to call the police. Back at the Doyle house, police and medics converge on the scene. Two EMTs strap Laurie Strode to a stretcher and bring her out to the ambulance. She keeps mumbling that she doesn't want to be put to sleep. They bring her to Haddonfield Memorial Hospital. The nurses call in Doctor Frederick Mixter (whom they suspect has been drinking at the country club) and he administers a shot to Laurie. She continues to protest, but they go unheard. Jimmy and his colleague Budd watch on. Meanwhile, Sheriff Leigh Brackett and Doctor Loomis drive across town searching for Michael Myers. Loomis repeatedly mentions how he had shot him six times. While Loomis reloads his gun, Brackett scans the streets. He blames Sam for letting Michael out to begin with. Suddenly, they hear screams coming from some trick or treaters. They pull over and Loomis sees someone who looks like Michael Myers approaching some children. He runs out of the car and begins pointing his gun at him. Brackett restrains him and Myers walks across the street. From out of nowhere, a police cruiser slams into Myers, ramming him into another vehicle which promptly explodes. Brackett asks Loomis if this was Myers, but Loomis isn't sure. Just then, another police cruiser pulls up. Deputy Gary Hunt exits the vehicle and tells Brackett about the bodies they recovered from the Wallace house. One of them is the sheriff's daughter, Annie. Michael meanwhile, continues to stalk the neighborhood. He walks into the home of Mister and Mrs. Elrod and startles Mrs. Elrod and takes a butcher knife from the kitchen counter. Their neighbor, Alice, hears the screams and calls out, but nobody responds. Alice goes back into her house to resume a telephone conversation she is having with a friend named Sally. Cast Main Cast *Donald Pleasence as Samuel Loomis *Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode *Charles Cyphers as Leigh Brackett *Lance Guest as Jimmy *Pamela Susan Shoop as Karen Bailey *Hunter von Leer as Gary Hunt *Tawny Moyer as Jill Franco *Ana Alicia as Janet Marshall *Nancy Stephens as Marion Whittington *Gloria Gifford as Virginia Alves *Leo Rossi as Budd *Ford Rainey as Frederick Mixter Differences *Many of the scenes are time-compressed and run a lot faster than usual, and many scenes that were previously without music now have bits of soundtrack music added. The explicit violence is removed in all death scenes, and, of course, all the profanity has been re-dubbed or removed. *The flashback to the first film contains additional sound effects, including a voice-over scream (supposedly from Laurie) when Loomis shoots Michael Myers. *A different shot is used of Loomis emerging from the house to find Myers's missing body. *The lines "I've been trick-or-treated to death tonight" and "You don't know what death is!" have been eliminated with an awkward voice-over from the neighbor saying "Was that a Halloween joke?" instead. *The scene where Myers steals a knife from Mrs. Elrod is out of place, appearing slightly later in the film, and is re-edited to suggest that Myers kills Mrs. Elrod instead of Alice Martin who gets killed in the theatrical cut. *The voice-over announcements of the male TV reporter run slightly differently, depending on when they appear over the extra scenes. *An extra close-up shot of Laurie is inserted before Jimmy and Bud bring her out of the house on the stretcher. *A few extra lines of dialogue with the female reporter near the beginning of the film were changed. *After Ben Tramer is killed by the policeman's car in the explosion, the scene uses an alternate take that depicts Loomis and Brackett's reactions, and also when Hunt pulls up to tell Brackett that Annie's body was discovered. *The first view of Annie's corpse when Brackett identifies her is deleted. *A different take of the dialogue is used when Laurie arrives at the hospital. All shots of her being stuck with needles are removed, and the scene is extended to include shots of Mrs. Alves, Dr. Mixter, and Jill leaning over her as her vision blurs. Then they begin to undress her as Mrs. Alves tells Jimmy and Bud to leave. *The first scene that shows Gary with the razor blade in his mouth is removed, with only the section where he and his mother arrive at the ER and talk to Jill remaining. *An extra scene is added where Janet talks to Jimmy about Laurie's injuries and tells him that Dr. Mixter gave her a double-bullet sedative. *A voice-over reporter speaking over the clip of "Night of the Living Dead" to inform viewers that Michael Myers is believed to have burned to death was added. *Extra dialogue is added between Mr. Garrett and Karen as he buzzes her in. He tells Karen the murders were committed because of drugs. *Mrs. Alves tries to call Laurie's parents while she scolds Janet for not calling them immediately. Meanwhile, Jimmy sneaks in to see Laurie, and Mrs. Alves tells him she'll give him two minutes and that's all, which explains why later she says, "Time's up, Jimmy. Let's go." *Karen and Jimmy discuss whether Michael Myers really burned to death in the accident, while Michael lurks in the shadows behind them. *An extended scene is added that depicts Jimmy bringing Laurie the Coke he promised her before he tells her it was Michael Myers stalking her. *As Mr. Garrett looks in the storage lockers directly before his death scene, extra shots of Michael Myers are inserted to make it appear as if Myers is slowly approaching, attracted by the noise Garrett makes when he knocks the boxes over. *A scene where Jill is on the phone (AFTER the phones are supposedly taken out!) is added, and Jimmy sneaks by her to go into Laurie's room to tell her that Michael Myers is dead. Instead of being relieved, Laurie panics and says that she has to get out of there, and Mrs. Alves, Jill, and Janet all come in to help sedate her. While they are working on Laurie, the lights in the hospital go out, and the emergency generator kicks on, which explains why the hospital is so dim for the rest of the film. *A different take is used of the scene where Loomis examines the charred remains of the man they think may have been Michael Myers. The scene also extends to include a scene of Loomis and Hunt walking outside the morgue to get in an elevator, where Loomis explains that he believes the wounded Myers might try and go home to nurse his injuries. *An extra voice-over is added in the scene where neighborhood kids throw rocks at the Myers house. A police officer is heard telling the mob, "Michael Myers isn't here; we've checked the entire house!" *A scene is added where Janet talks to Karen and tells her how creepy it is that the lights went out and how Laurie was screaming about Michael Myers coming to get her. *The dialogue between Bud and Karen cuts immediately to a shot of Karen entering the therapy room, where Bud is already naked in the therapy tub. The scene also includes extra shots of the temperature gauge slowly rising and Michael Myers' hand turning it up. There is an alternate take of Karen talking to whom she thinks is Bud standing behind her, turning around to see that it's Michael Myers. The scene concludes with just one shot of her being shoved into the scalding water. *The scenes where Marion arrives are directly connected to when she leaves with Dr. Loomis in the Marshall's car. *When Jimmy discovers Laurie lying there in shock, there is extra dialogue as Jimmy and Jill wait for Dr. Mixter to respond to their call. In the theatrical version, this is where Janet runs to get Mixter and discovers his body, and is killed. That entire sequence was removed and Jimmy finally gets restless and says he's going to find Mrs. Alves. *Laurie's dream is placed differently and features a new voice-over of a little-girl voice saying, "Please don't hurt me, Michael! I'm your sister!" *When Laurie crawls into the empty hospital room and grabs the phone, she tries to speak and cries into the phone, "Mama, he won't die! He won't go away!" *Extra dialogue is added between Jimmy and Jill where they wonder why the hospital is now empty, and Jill asks if someone could be in there with them. *Jill's death scene is softened. The shot of Michael stabbing her in the back with the scalpel was removed, and now it appears as if he simply grabs Jill and drops her. Additional sound effects of Jill groaning as she is dropped suggest that she survives. *All evidence of Jimmy being in the parked car with Laurie is cut out because he's supposed to be looking for others during the entire climax of the film. *The Marshall's death scene is less gruesome, with Michael jumping up and pulling the Marshall with him, apparently stabbing him from behind. *The television editing makes it appear as if Jimmy's fall is caused by the explosion. *When Laurie is placed in the ambulance at the end, someone is in there with her. There is a final scare as the figure sits up, covered by a sheet, and the sheet falls away, revealing Jimmy with a bandage on his head. Laurie cries in relief and says, "We made it!" They hold hands and "Mr. Sandman" begins to play over an exterior scene of the ambulance pulling out of the hospital's parking lot. Category:Films Category:Alternate Cuts